Gryphon Minerals (GRY)

Shares in
Gryphon Minerals
on Wednesday suffered their worst one-day fall in two months of 11.7 per cent after the West African explorer said it successfully completed a $58.5 million share placement. Management is looking to tap retail shareholders for a further $10 million at an offer price of $1.30 a new share. The new capital will be used for resource and reserve definition drilling, regional exploration, definitive feasibility studies, procuring long lead items and preliminary site works at Gryphon’s flagship Banfora gold project. Gryphon has a Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) inferred resource estimate of 2 million ounces of gold. All brokers polled on Bloomberg are urging investors to buy the stock, but the explorer is not expected to post a profit until 2013-14. Gryphon has shed 10.5 per cent of its value over the past 12 months compared with the S&P/ASX 200 Materials Index, which fell 18.8 per cent.